radiantlightxx

[radiantlightxx]

Oh, fair and flighty love

My aerolite above

The only dove I see 💙🌿

[radiantlightxx]

"I was in the middle before I knew I had begun." ❄️

This applies to both of them honestly, the fools. I think a lot about all the little off-screen interactions these two had in HW 😭 A lot of sparring and quiet moments spent in each other's company.

There's something about dragoon armor -- specifically designed to make others keep their distance, with all the spikes and bladed attachments -- and still trying to find ways to connect. These two are so bound up in duty and vengeance in HW, but I love the way their initial distrust blooms into understanding and respect and, eventually, love -- even if they're too afraid to act on the latter for a WHILE what with the fate of Ishgard hanging over their heads. Silly little guys.

[radiantlightxx]

A short Heavensward-era comic about grief and guilt.

Major ⚠️heavensward spoilers⚠️ contained here.

Some notes:

Xel'ia had innate talent as a healer, but no formal training at the time of HW, so on page 2, you can see her trying (and failing) to heal. She also didn't pick up drk until after HW, and mainly did it as a way of coping with her grief and heartache.

The whole thing is inspired by a quote from Buffy (though I ended up changing it a little) and Dragonsong Reprise Ultimate!

[radiantlightxx]

*with a dark and evil aura surrounding me* I'm shy

[radiantlightxx]

"You killed them, didn't you? You killed them all?"

"Like dogs, Shianni."

[radiantlightxx]

What more do you need to start an adventure than your spellbook, your space fish, and a can-do attitude?

[radiantlightxx]

Zevran offers Alistair a word of advice

[radiantlightxx]

Something that really stuck with me while I was playing Mass Effect 2, and that I feel was so important to understanding the relationship between Shepard and Garrus, whether you romance him or not, is that Garrus is your only companion from ME1 who never moved on.

You died. The crew watched you die. Assumedly they grieved you, there was a funeral service, there were tears and all five stages of grief. Things were rough, but eventually life took on a shade of normalcy again.

Kaiden/Ashley got reassigned and continued their work for the alliance. Liara fights tooth and nail to get your body to Cerberus, but then it’s out of her hands and she becomes an information broker. Tali goes back to the Floatilla, like she was always supposed to. Wrex becomes a clan leader. And yes, they’re all fundamentally changed by their time on the Normandy, but no one seems as stuck as Garrus Vakarian.

Because he doesn’t go back to the Citadel. He doesn’t join the Turian Hierarchy. He ships himself off to Omega, one of the most dangerous places he could be, and makes a life out of pissing off the most dangerous people there. It’s kind of a suicide mission, especially after what happened with Sidonis. He kind of figures he’s going to die doing this, but what else can he do?

There is no normalcy for Garrus in a world without Shepard, and I think that’s why he’s always immediately ready to come back to the Normandy. The Normandy, and Shepard, are home for Garrus and that’s why I think romancing him feels like the natural conclusion for so many femme Sheps, because Shepard feels that way too.

Of all the companions, no one needs Shepard to live more than Garrus, and no one needs Garrus more than Shepard. They’re perfectly matched, as lovers, as friends, as soldiers, as whatever they are in your universe and when you’re that perfectly matched with someone, you never quite feel whole without them.

No Shepard without Vakarian.

[radiantlightxx]

makes me feel insane to think that zevran never takes another lover after the warden if they die fighting the archdemon. he spends like the whole game being unapologetic about his sexuality and the fact that he simply enjoys sex and then he just. never has it again. because his beloved is gone. and i'm feeling so unwell about it.

[radiantlightxx]

I'm...so obsessed with them. The push and pull. Wanting to live and live for yourself in the face of duty and expectation. Not wanting to admit that what started as a fling has become a lifeline in the midst of war and blight. chewing on themmmm

[radiantlightxx]

The Flame in the Abyss

[radiantlightxx]

I wondered if anyone had requested this yet on Cameo and then remembered that I have money to exchange for goods and services

[radiantlightxx]

[radiantlightxx]

A little style study to try and figure out my next PC, Lumina! She's a graviturgy wizard and failgirl who's well-intentioned but kind of clueless! She will talk shit about you with her space guppies that follow her around like puppies, and she won't be subtle about it (she also is unaware that this makes her look crazy).

[radiantlightxx]

Two things that I think are way more common than most people realize because few people want to admit to them is having a period of time where you have no friends & never having really dated someone well into adulthood. The second one is observation but I find when I tell people a few years ago I had no friends it ends up resulting in them telling me that they also used to have/currently have no real friends. When I first was getting social again and felt like a feral child raised by wolves while all my peers had moved on w their lives my therapist told me “most people are as lonely as you are” and at the time I was like okay cope 😑 but now looking back she actually could not have been more right

[radiantlightxx]

lucanis' last question when interrogating zara's corpse -- whether illario also asked her to kill caterina -- is so telling. because if illario had done that, I actually do think lucanis would have killed him. (his standards are predictably wild and hilarious in a dark sort of way. listen I can forgive you for killing me that's fine understandable even but there's a limit to everything illario.) which is why he saves that question for last: it's the one thing he really does not want to know the answer to. because if the answer is yes, it's going to need action from him that would be so psychologically catastrophic that nothing the ossuary could do to him would compare, that would have been the end of him too, I feel, even with rook and the team there to try to catch him or pick up the pieces. I love how if you pay attention you can trace out the underlying hurt/logic already here, before it gets spelled out in inner demons. the logic lucanis' brain operates on is very sad and very consistent the whole way throughout the game.

[radiantlightxx]

picking up zevran right after alistair finally gets a good flirt line in is so brutal. poor boy